MITCHELL WINS DAWN STALEY AWARD

The four-time All-American dished-out a career-high 148 assists this season

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Kelsey Mitchell added another award to her resume Thursday evening as she was honored as the 2018 Dawn Staley Award winner.

The Dawn Staley Award is given to the most outstanding collegiate guard in the country, a player who exemplifies the skills that Dawn possessed during her career — ball handling, scoring, her ability to distribute the basketball and her will to win. Mitchell was presented the award during the Phoenix Club of Philadelphia’s Dawn Staley Award reception at the prestigious Union League of Philadelphia.

Mitchell joins a list of previous winners who were some of the best college basketball had to offer — Skylar Diggins (2013), Odyssey Sims (2014), Tiffany Mitchell (2015), Moriah Jefferson (2016) and Kelsey Plum (2017). This year’s finalists in addition to Mitchell were Asia Durr (Louisville), Victoria Vivians (Mississippi State) and Kia Nurse (Connecticut).

In addition to her scoring, in which she was third in the country at 24.3 ppg, Mitchell dished-out a career-high 148 assists and had a career-low 78 turnovers this season. She also shot 44.8 percent from the floor and 40.2 percent from three-point range which were both the best of her career. She was named the Big Ten’s Player of the Year for third time and became Ohio State’s first four-time All-American.

Mitchell finished her career as the NCAA’s second all-time leading scorer with 3,402 career points. She also made 497 career three-pointers which is 56 more than any other female in NCAA history. Mitchell owns 30 OSU, Big Ten or NCAA records and is just one of four players in NCAA history with more than 3,000 points and 500 assists.